


Truth and Consequences

by FayJay



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-05-04
Updated: 2009-05-04
Packaged: 2017-10-02 08:57:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FayJay/pseuds/FayJay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a series of snapshots of Castiel's attempts to understand Dean Winchester, and vice versa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Truth and Consequences

**Author's Note:**

> (My first foray into SPN since writing the big Dean/Faith crossover thingy 2 years ago. Apparently my muse ADORES Castiel.)

“Why are you doing this?” Castiel asks.

It isn't the first time that the angel has suddenly slipped into existence while Dean wasn't looking, and he is fairly sure it won't be the last. It still sends a shocky surge of adrenaline coursing through his veins every single time, and makes his trigger finger twitch.

“For fuck's sake! Can't you ever just knock, like normal people?”

Castiel ignores the question – or else considers it perfectly self explanatory – and perches on the edge of Dean's bed instead, to peer gravely at the television. Dean tries to hide the minute tremble in his fingers by concentrating on crushing the burger wrapper into a ball and lobbing it at the trash can. He feels a surge of satisfaction when it drops neatly in the middle, and then wonders who the hell he's trying to impress. He wipes his greasy fingers on the bedsheet beneath him and waits for the bad news.

Because it's always bad news.

But Castiel's head is cocked to one side as he studies the TV screen intently, for all the world as though it might hold the answer to some eternal question, and he makes no motion to pass on today's cryptic message from the Almighty. Dean cracks in a matter of seconds. “So, what – the four horsemen of the Apocalypse are rampaging through Walmart? Godzilla is trampling New York? Little Timmy fell down a well and Lassie was busy?” His tone is cocky, almost contemptuous, and a scared voice in the back of Dean's head always demands what the hell he can possibly be playing at when he taunts this creature. This being. This impossible, unhoped-for, terrifyingly powerful and dazzling thing that could drag him back screaming to the pit for all eternity. But fear has always made Dean talk too fast and too loud, and the bravado is almost bone-deep by now.

He doesn't think it fools Castiel, but he can't seem to stop doing it.

“Why do you look at this?” Castiel asks. Dean glances at the screen, and flushes. He had been watching _Lilo and Stitch._

“The Porn was pay per view,” he says, defensively, and then wonders again who he is trying to impress, or to fool. And reminds himself that Castiel, of all people, is unlikely to be mocking him for watching a Disney movie. Castiel, he is fairly sure, has not had much opportunity to become a film critic. “It's a kids' film,” says Dean in a smaller voice. “It was on.” He shrugs. “I like it.”

“But why do you do this?” Castiel has turned that searching gaze onto Dean now. “All of you here on earth. I cannot understand your fascination with such lies.”

Dean blinks. Maybe this is just a social call. “Because – I don't know. Because you can lose yourself? Or find yourself, or something? I don't know. Everyone likes stories.” He considers trying to explain Oprah and Jerry and the WWF and _Days of Our Lives_ to an angel of the Lord, and balks. “We just do.”

“But this is not the truth,” says the angel, frowning.

Dean frowns himself. He wishes Sam were here, rather than doing their much-needed laundry. Sam is better at this kind of thing. “It's – it's a sort of picture of reality,” he says at last. “What we want out of reality. A neater reality, where things make more sense. Happy ever after, black hats and white hats, the hero getting the girl, the cavalry saving the day, nobody gets left behind...” his voice trails away. On the screen, in glorious 2D, Stitch is reconciled with his enemies and dashes off to save Lilo from the bad guys. “No. Okay. It's lies. But maybe we get enough truth.”

He glances over at the angel, feeling suddenly older and emptier, and finds that Castiel is gone.

* * * 

“Why are you in this place?”

Dean spills his beer. Divine visitations are not, he is fairly sure, supposed to be such a total pain in the ass. “Again with the bamfing,” says Dean, looking at the extremely un-suave beer stain on the crotch of his jeans. He doesn't look at Castiel. “One of these days I'm going to put a bell around your goddamn neck,” he says, and then feels a little flutter of terror in the pit of his stomach. He ignores it.

Castiel steps closer. “What are you doing here?” God's holy tax accountant. He looks – if you don't look properly, if you aren't used to seeing the real shape of the world – just like any guy. But the very air around him prickles with static, and a breath of ozone and something like fresh grass surrounds Castiel in the midst of all the friendly stink of beer and grease. He is subtly, terrifyingly inhuman. Dean looks at him, and wonders how the rest of the people in the bar can be so blind. They should run screaming into the night, if they had half a pinch of sense between them. His mouth is dry. He raises the beer bottle to his mouth again, wetting his lips and trying to understand the question.

“What does it look like I'm doing? We're having a well-deserved celebratory beer. Or three.” He glances over at the john, wonders whether Sam will emerge in time to catch a glimpse of Dean's little feathered friend. He isn't sure whether Castiel avoids Sam on purpose, but it certainly seems that the angel makes a lot of these unscheduled visits when Dean is without his brother. “Maybe you've been sitting around scratching your angelic ass all day on a cloud, but some of us have been working.”

The look Castiel directs at him makes Dean flinch. A cringing apology is in his mouth, but he bites his tongue and sticks his chin out pugnaciously.

“This war has many fronts.” Castiel doesn't raise his voice or lower his brows, but Dean gets the message loud and clear. Big picture, yada yada, warriors of the lord, breaking of the seals, yada yada. Only – when Castiel is standing there, all banked heat and carefully restrained might and smelling faintly like lightning, he has to believe it. There are angels out there, fighting a holy war right now. They may be a bunch of self-righteous assholes, but they are a force to be reckoned with, and they are – more or less – all on the same side. The Winchester boys may have to save the world, but they aren't in it alone.

“Yeah,” says Dean, looking down. He darts a glance at Castiel and then looks away again. The angel has the most disconcerting way of either ignoring a person entirely or else looking right into their eyes, like a madman or a lover or a child. Too intimate. Not that Dean has many secrets left, but he has his pride. That may be just about all he has, in fact. “Yeah,” he says again. “I get that. But for those of us with pulses and appetites and all that messy human stuff – we got to eat sometimes, you know? And drink. And we're allowed to kick back and have a few beers after a hard day of fighting monsters.” He pauses. “We...we are allowed to do that, right?” Dean glances around him, suddenly conscious that this is not the most salubrious of locations for an angel of the Lord. “Hey - are you allowed in here?”

Castiel cocks his head. “I may walk where I please,” he says. He turns and looks around the bar, taking in the miniskirted waitresses, the dingy windows, the peanuts on the bar and the shreds of torn beer mat adhering to the sticky floor. “This is the Lord's creation.” He turns back to Dean. “But why do you come here? ”

“Jesus,” snaps Dean, feeling again the faint, nervy thrill of recollection that this is, perhaps, a blaspheme, but barrelling on regardless. “For a drink, okay? To relax! To feel good. To forget. Same as anyone. What is _with_ you?”

“Who are you talking to?”

Dean glances around at Sam's voice, but he knows already that when he turns back to Castiel, the angel will not be there.

 

* * * 

“You do not love Suzanne.”

Dean does not hit the ceiling, but it's a close thing. He turns to stare incredulously at Castiel, and then glances down at his own very naked body, and then stares back up at Castiel again. “You do not have the faintest smidgen of a hint of a ghost of a clue about personal space, do you?” he whispers furiously, grabbing for one of the towels and wrapping it around his hips. “I am in the bathroom. I have just finished making sweet sweet love to the prettiest little...what do you mean, I don't love Suzanne? What the hell has that got to do with anything?”

Castiel looks back at the bathroom door, and Dean wonders whether his angelic eyes have X ray vision. Probably. Suzanne had been sprawled in a gorgeous naked heap when he left the bedroom, and Dean feels a sudden surge of protectiveness and indignation. She shouldn't be leered at by some supernatural creature while she sleeps. She's a nice girl.

“Why did you lie with her when there is nothing here of love?”

Dean raises his hands helplessly in the air. “Because she's hot! Because we were both horny! Because it felt good! It felt great, in fact! And, seriously, what the fuck has this got to do with you? You telling me there was some kind of chastity clause to the whole getting saved from eternal torment deal? Because, I gotta tell you, that would really, really, suck. And not in a good way.” He feels a sudden chill. “There wasn't, was there? A chastity clause?”

“There was no chastity clause,” agrees Castiel. But he looks troubled. “I do not understand why you demean yourself and her.” Dean bridles, but before he has time to protest that there was no demeaning involved, thank you very much, Castiel continues: “I did not think that you would be the kind of man you are.” He doesn't look angry, just sincerely puzzled.

And how the hell is a person supposed to take that? Dean opens his mouth, and then closes it, and then turns away. Obviously he would be a disappointment. The angel was probably expecting some kind of white knight when God sent him on his big old mission to rescue someone from Hell. And all he got was beer-swilling, burger-chomping, gun-toting Dean Winchester, who is, let's face it, about as saintly as Robert Downey Junior. One of the good guys, for damn sure – but not precisely dripping with virtues.

He turns on the faucet and lowers his face, splashing cold water onto his too-warm skin. “I like her,” he says a moment later, still not looking at Castiel. He doesn't like this feeling that he has let the angel down. It ties him up in knots inside, makes him resentful and hopeless and sad. “She likes me. We had a little fun together. It was nice.” Oh, get a load of him, Mr Articulate. “It was beautiful,” he says, more honestly. “It was a little bit of beauty and joy and, and friendliness. And I lost myself, for a moment. I forgot all about – well, about everything.” He pulls a face. “Almost forgot.”

He turns around and looks at Castiel. Dean reaches down, feels the ceramic of the sink cool under his fingertips, and leans back with studied nonchalence. He is forcing himself not to cross his arms in front of his chest, because that just looks too pathetically obvious, too defensive. Under the scent of cheap soap, the room smells like a summer storm. “You are very human,” says Castiel at last, and Dean blinks. He looks at the thoughtful expression on Castiel's face and is struck afresh by his oddness. Alien. Innocent, in a way that has nothing to do with sweetness, coyness or ignorance. Simply – otherness.

Castiel's gaze fixes on the green and white tiles, but Dean gets the feeling he is looking at something else entirely. “It has been long millenia since last I dealt with men. Humans are fleeting creatures, and your passions seem so strange.” He cocks his head to one side. “Your ways are not like ours.” Castiel looks again at – or possibly through – the bathroom door, and then looks back at Dean, right into his eyes, and Dean feels like some kind of exotic creature in a zoo. He has to fight to keep his posture casual. He really wants to be wearing clothes, and holding a gun, or a knife, or something. Not that a nuclear warhead would do a blind bit of good against an angel, of course, but a weapon would definitely make him feel better, however futile.

He is not expecting Castiel to reach out one meditative hand and touch his bare chest, and he jumps. Castiel keeps his fingers there, resting lightly against the skin over Dean's heart, one fingertip brushing Dean's nipple, and this has just gone rocketing past Dean's everyday Twilight-Zone weird into Freak-The-Fuck-Out weird. “Hey,” croaks Dean, suddenly breathless and scared out of his wits – and something else as well, maybe. And Castiel is still looking into his eyes as if he could wrench all the secret workings of Dean's heart and soul out into the cold light of day simply by looking. As if he wants to. The room is heavy with unspent lightning, and Dean's nose is full of the scent of the sea and fresh-cut grass.

“Your bodies are such fragile things to house these hopes and dreams.” Castiel's voice is low and earnest, and he could be talking about anything – a car, a box, a crackerjack toy. His gaze slides away from Dean's eyes, takes in the finely flaring nostrils, the nervous curve of his mouth, the thin skin over jugular and Adam's apple, the hollow of his throat, and Dean sees himself for a moment as the angel must do, as something soft and breakable. Sees his body as a shell, something to be possessed. Something he possesses. He wonders wildly whether there is any remnant of the man whose body Castiel is inhabiting; whether he is riding along inside there, behind the eyes, or whether Castiel's arrival burned him right out of his skin, sent him straight up to heaven for good behaviour. Castiel's eyes lock on his again, and Dean shivers. “But you are precious to the Lord, and he has need of you, so we must keep you safe.”

Dean scrabbles for a response and comes up empty. He licks his lips, painfully conscious all of a sudden that the unscarred skin beneath Castiel's hand is a gift from the angel. He can almost feel the hellhound tearing into his flesh, feel the startling pain and the surge of despair as he was ripped out of the world and into hell.

From whence he was ripped again by this creature before him, as the handprint on his arm attests.

“Thank you,” he says, surprising himself with his sincerity. If Castiel is surprised he does not show it. “For – saving me. Thank you for saving me.”

“It was the will of God,” says Castiel, simply.

“But you did it. You came for me.” Dean leans forward a little, just a little, and feels Castiel's warm palm press against his skin. It does not burn a scar this time; it is a reassuring warmth over his heart. His voice is hoarse. “Thank you for coming for me.”

Castiel looks down at his hand upon Dean's chest. They are standing very close now, and he can surely feel Dean's pulse rabbitting under his palm. He frowns, and looks up into Dean's eyes again. “I did as I was bid,” he says, but there is something startled in his face now, something uncertain. Something new.

He steps away, and Dean feels suddenly bereft.

Castiel's tongue darts out briefly, wetting his lips in preparation for some profound speech, some holy proclamation - but nothing comes. His expression is unreadable. And then he is gone, as surely as if he had never been there, leaving only a breath of ozone and summer lawns behind him.

* * * 

“So is the Bible true, then?” Dean has so many questions, but Castiel rarely stays around to let him ask any of them. Why me? Why not Dad? Why leave us all to be monster chow for thousands of years, you bastards? But this is the one that comes bubbling to the surface when Castiel lingers again. “Was Jesus Christ the son of God? Did Abraham have to sacrifice his son? And Moses, and Ruth, and Jonah and the whale - is it all true?”

Castiel does not look at him, but neither does he leave. “It contains pieces of the truth,” he says eventually. “All of your holy books reveal some pieces of the truth.”

Dean chews over that as he pats down the last of the earth. He thinks about Job, and about John Winchester, and about what had been done to the little girl before they found her. The muscles in his arm and his back and his legs still burn from all the digging, and in spite of the bite in the air his clothes are soaked through with sweat. He thinks longingly of the shower back at the motel, and the clean, threadbare sheets. “Then God is a monster,” he says slowly. He knows that this is not a particularly diplomatic gambit, but it is half past three in the morning, he is cold and tired and coated in filth, and he has just buried a five year old girl next to the remains of her parents. He isn't feeling particularly diplomatic.

“Be careful what you say.” There's no hiding the threat in Castiel's tone, but Dean doesn't give a damn. He's been wanting to have this conversation for a while now.

“No, really - how is He better than the demons? If He is all-powerful, if He really is, is GOD, then He should be able to stop this. Why doesn't He stop this?” His voice is rough, angry, edged with despair. His eyes are prickling – from grave dust, obviously, because Dean Winchester isn't a weepy thirteen year old girl. Or a broken five year old one.

“He is,” says Castiel. The angel looks at the shovel in Dean's hands, as though he has never seen such a thing before. As though it contains come kind of secret. Dean is coming to find these curious glances irritating as fuck. He sets the shovel down. “You are,” adds Castiel. “We are His agents here on earth, and we must work his will.”

“That is such bullshit!” Dean snarls. He lunges for Castiel, grabs his lapels, drags him up close and glares into his eyes. “That isn't enough!” A split second afterwards, he realises what he is doing and springs backwards, stumbling over freshly turned earth in his haste to get away, to undo it. Too late. Castiel's expression is not friendly, and Dean cannot imagine how he has let himself forget even for the slightest instant just what is hiding inside that ordinary body. He crumples a little. “I mean,” he says, “I just mean – it's not right.” He sounds like a kid, protesting that life isn't fair. And the thing is, Dean had learned that lesson early, had learned that life was NOT fair, that there were no rules or guarantees. That was how it all worked – the world was fucked up, end of story, no point bitching. But now, having to accept that there is some kind of master plan, that there's a Big Guy watching over them – now he is furiously indignant. Because if this is God's idea of looking after His people, then Dean thinks they need a new God. A better God. One who actually gives a shit, and doesn't just let people's mothers be murdered in the middle of the night, or allow innocent five year old girls be tortured to death by monsters.

“God moves...” begins Castiel, and that's enough. That's more than enough. Dean cuts him off.

“You better not be about to tell me that God moves in mysterious ways,” he says, all self-preservation fled once more. “Or so help me...”

Castiel gives him a very level look. “If that is what you wish.” There is a pause.

“That's it? That's all you've got?”

“You are not interested in the truth, Dean Winchester.” Dean notices, almost abstractedly, that he has left dirty fingerprints on the lapels of Castiel's coat.

“I'm not interested in fucking platitudes,” says Dean. “But I'm very interested in the truth.”

Castiel frowns. “It is too big for you to understand.”

Dean closes his eyes. “Fuck you. Oh, fuck you.”

“You would be wise not to forget that this is just a mask,” says Castiel evenly. He lifts one of his hands and studies it dispassionately, taking in the texture of the skin, the delicate webbing of flesh wrapped around bones. “I tried to speak in my own voice, appeared in my true form.” He shrugs. “You cannot see the truth of things. It is no fault of mine.”

And maybe that's true; maybe if he'd been the kind of person who could look upon an angel without getting his eyes burned out of his skull, could hear his voice without feeling like his eardrums were going to burst, then maybe he could have understood the rules of this fucked up celestial game. He is out of his depth.

“Well whose fault was this?” demands Dean, gesturing towards the shallow grave. They should have gotten there faster. They could have saved her. They should have saved her. She was only a kid. He does not dare ask where the child's soul is now. “Was this part of His ineffable plan?”

He has turned his back on Castiel, is kneeling in the dirt, pressing his fingers into the fresh soil, and he knows that the wretched angel will have vanished again. He wipes his nose on the back of his hand. He knows that he is alone.

So it is a shock when he feels the careful weight of Castiel's hand on his bowed head. “You did the best you could,” says the angel. His voice is soft, almost awkward, and his borrowed fingers slide gently, tentatively through Dean's hair. He is not in the business of giving comfort, but for once, for whatever reason, he is making the attempt. “Her death was not your fault.” Dean closes his eyes, and shivers, and tries not to lean into the warmth behind him.

* * * 

“He couldn't help it,” Dean rasps, as Castiel carries him out of the burning building. There is blood on his hands, in his eyes, everywhere, and he is fairly sure that several bones are broken, and several other things torn or punctured. It isn't the worst pain he's ever suffered – it's so far from the worst pain that he's ever suffered that it's laughable. But he's glad he doesn't have to walk, because the world is out of focus and his ears are ringing. “Not Sam's fault,” he says again, and then he's out for the count.

When he wakes up, he is lying on the bed in the same motel room where they'd woken up that morning. But this time Sam is not there. Dean stares blankly at the Charlie Chaplin wallpaper and works on piecing together the recent past. Then wishes that he hadn't bothered. He sits up gingerly and is surprised to discover that his wounds already feel half-healed. Some perks to having a guardian angel after all, apparently.

“It wasn't Sam's fault,” he says, looking across at the other bed. Castiel is sitting hunched on the edge of the covers with his coat folded in a neat little pile beside him, and there are blue shadows under his eyes. Which can't be a good sign. “He was trying to help,” insists Dean. Castiel looks at him silently, and then looks away. “This isn't over,” Dean says, urgently, scrambling off the bed and ignoring his body's complaints. He stares at the angel, willing Castiel to meet his gaze. He feels suddenly sick with dread. “Sam's still one of the good guys. He was just trying to help, damn it.”

“With every step he takes Sam draws closer to Armageddon.” Castiel sounds tired.

“Bullshit.”

Castiel raises his head and meets Dean's imploring look. His expression is as human as Dean has ever seen it, and it takes him a moment to identify it. Pity. “You know it to be true.”

Dean is quietly terrified. “I won't accept that. I will not fucking accept that!”

Castiel sighs. “That comes as no surprise.” He stands up and walks over to the window, and Dean notices that there are bloodstains on the angel's suit and traces of soot. Dean cannot remember ever seeing him look so thoroughly disheveled or defeated as he does at this moment. The familiar ghost of cut-grass and ozone is muted now, and sullied with smoke and the coppery scent of blood. “You do not like the truth.”

Dean bristles. “So, what, you're just going to give up on him? You're just going to condemn him?” He stands up, and starts pacing. “He's not a monster, you tight-assed fucking spaceman. How was he supposed to stand back and do nothing when he knew his powers could help them? When they were going to fucking die if he didn't intervene? How the hell does it make him one of the bad guys, that he couldn't stand to let them suffer? What kind of bullshit rule is that?”

“Sam has allied himself with her and with his destiny.”

“You lied to me!”

Castiel turns away from the window at that. He looks offended. “I never lied.”

“You pretended you were on my side, you bastard!” snaps Dean. He cannot believe how painful this betrayal feels. He cannot believe he let himself be played for a fool this way.

Castiel looks at him uncomprehendingly. “I am a servant of the Lord, as you should be yourself.”

“I am on Sam Winchester's side, you stupid, manipulative dick,” says Dean, astounded that this needs spelling out. “I'm not anybody's servant: not your lousy God's, not yours, not Lucifer's, not anybody's. I am on _Sam's_ side. Sam's. My brother's. Always and only his. What part of that are you not getting?”

“I brought you back to stop him, but you did not have the strength.”

“I am not killing Sam,” says Dean, through gritted teeth. Castiel meets his furious gaze, and looks away.

“Perhaps we left him for too long without your influence. Perhaps this cause was always lost, and love was not enough.”

“Sam is not a lost cause!” Dean crosses the room in two quick steps and slams Castiel up against the wall, and Castiel, astonishingly, lets him. “Stop talking about him like he's a lost fucking cause!”

There is a charged, terrible silence, while Dean's brain catches up with his anger and he realises that he's pretty much committing suicide with this attack. But he's still mad enough to keep holding on to the damn angel's lapels, just daring the fucker to blast him out of existence. Instead Castiel looks back into Dean's furious eyes with an expression that Dean does not know how to interpret. He makes no move to free himself, but instead lifts his hands to circle Dean's wrists, and then Castiel leans forward and kisses him gently, carefully, on the mouth.

“I was supposed to stop him if you did not do the job,” says Castiel, a moment later. He is looking out over Dean's shoulder, ignoring the way Dean's encircled hands shake, still clutching nervelessly at his collar. Ignoring the man gaping like a fish in front of him. He almost seems to be talking to himself. “It was my charge to see it done but I waited too long. Now everything is lost. Your brother makes himself a vessel fit for Lucifer.”

There is another charged silence, while Dean takes in his words and recoils. Castiel releases his wrists. “No. No, that's not – no, that can't be. That cannot be.”

“I do not understand why you still hold on to your lies,” says Castiel wearily. He lifts one hand and cups the side of Dean's face, as if holding him still can somehow help the angel understand him better. Dean, startled and jumpy and terrified and furious, quite unaccountably, lets him. Castiel sounds almost fond: “'The good guys always win.' 'The hero gets the girl.' 'The last minute escape.' 'Family means nobody left behind.' You know the world is not like this and yet you cling to hope.”

“There's always hope,” says Dean, doggedly.

Castiel grimaces, something bright and dangerous lighting his eyes. “No, now we're left with certainty and sorrow at our end; make no mistake, I mean to fight and die upon the field, but hope is gone and all creation trembles on the brink.” He kisses Dean again, lost and desperate, and this time Dean, desperate and lost, clutches at his jacket and kisses him back. “Some weakness made me stay my hand, compassion or desire. I am a warrior of the Lord and I have failed my trust; the world will pay the price.”

“There's always hope,” says Dean again, more firmly. “Good things do happen. And there is no way, there is no fucking way, that Sammy is going to be possessed by the devil. I will not have it. Aren't you the one who's always telling me God has a plan?”

“God has a plan,” agrees Castiel, a tinge of uncertainty entering his voice.

“Well then,” says Dean. “I know you're Mister Important Celestial Superpower Guy, but I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the Big Guy doesn't tell you everything.” Castiel says nothing. His expression is thoughtful, however. “And I'm telling you now that He did not send you all the way down to Hell to bust my ass out of jail just so that the devil could win the war. Maybe Sam's, like, a Trojan Horse, or something. Maybe he's going to – oh, hell, what do I know? But I do know for damn sure that this is not the end. I know that Sam is better than that, and I really want to think God is better than that. I'm not giving up on either of them.”

Castiel shakes his head slowly. “This is the reason, isn't it? Why He put you before us. You see the world not as it is but as you'd have it be; and seeing it so you change the world and reshape destiny.” He brushes Dean's bottom lip with the pad of his thumb, and Dean is taken aback by the brilliance of his sudden smile. “Dean Winchester, you shame me. I will trust in the Lord.”

“Okay, good,” says Dean, breathlessly, feeling hope swell in his chest. “You and me, then, against the lot of them?”

“The hordes of Hell will quail,” agrees Castiel, and kisses him once more.

 

FINIS 


End file.
